


Near Beyond the Stars

by Mortissimo



Series: And the World Will Live as One [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Sex, Asexuality Spectrum, Injury Recovery, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, POV Alternating, Wraith (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 10:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20308000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: A rescue and a reunion fifty years in the making do not quite equate to a happy ending. There are still too many loose pieces for that. But some of them are not quite as loose as they appear.





	1. Chapter 1

It had been a long time since Guide had dreamed. Years under the Genii city, with their strange radiation making his head hurt and drowning out the songs of his people, had broken him of the habit, and when he had freed himself at last, the one voice he missed most was not among the chorus. So there was no point in dreaming. Now, after his inimical allegiance with Atlantis, after he had given the Gift so profoundly to the human whose name felt so close to his own, sometimes Guide found himself lost in memories of a planet he had only briefly known. But those were not dreams, of course. Wraith never dreamed at all unless it was a message, and it had been a long time since anyone had been close enough to Guide for such an intimate connection. 

It was strange, then, to close his eyes in sleep on his ship, and then open them a moment later to the blue and orange of the Atlantis control room. Everything had the soft edges that came with memory, the blurring at the edge of his vision that came with a lack of experience in a shared mind space. Though not a lack of power. 

At the top of the stairs, staring down at him, Teyla Emmagan was as regal as any Queen Guide had ever served. He wondered briefly if she knew how much paler she appeared in her imagination. If she knew her hair hung straighter, darker. Guide doubted it. When her eyes opened, they took a moment to find him, standing in the empty ring, and focus in. 

"He hears me," she murmured, no doubt low enough that any person standing so far from her in the waking world as Guide was in the dream would not have heard. But Guide was not awake. 

"Yes. I do." It gave him a little pleasure to see the moment of surprise flash over Teyla's face, though it was quickly enough stifled by apprehension. Knowing how deeply she loathed the wraith part of her, Guide found it unlikely she would dig deep enough into it to contact him without some kind of dire need. Or some kind of considerable leverage. Teyla began to descend the stairs, and Guide moved to meet her. At the edge of his hearing, there was beeping and soft conversation that sounded less like the control room of Atlantis, and more like the medical wing.  _ The mystery deepens,  _ sighed a part of him long lost and perpetually bemused.  _ Whatever does our granddaughter want? _ Guide paused at the base of the stairs, and did his best to keep any echoes of the beloved voice away from the guest in his dream.

"What could possibly drive you to contact me this way?" He asked instead, as Teyla came to a stop a few steps above him, giving him the unusual opportunity to look up at her. Up close, her eyes shone more gold than he remembered them looking in person. 

"Unusual circumstances require an unusual approach," she said with a faint frown, unintentionally encapsulating the entire situation in the galaxy after the arrival of the Earth expedition. "I assume you noticed that Michael's forces have been less aggressive lately?"

"I did. Your doing?" It had struck Guide as curious. Michael had suffered no major losses that he'd been able to determine, and had struck no major victories, and yet he had seemed to drop off the screens of the rest of the wraith entirely. 'Less aggressive' was a serious understatement–Michael had disappeared. 

"Yes and no. As you may have heard, I was Michael's prisoner for some time. Atlantis has an ally… A wraith ally… Who took my place. He was helping stabilize what was done to Michael, in order to offer it to the rest of the wraith, but something happened and he was very badly injured. Doctor Keller does not know enough of wraith physiology to save him, and we are running out of time to try things." There was an itch at the back of Guide's mind, like he had gotten a splinter lodged there. Like an idea. Telepathic contact is more concept than words, and to share a dream between wraith is no different. Teyla's careful rephrasing,  _ a wraith ally _ , brought with it splinters of an idea that was lodged so deep in Guide's heart that the muscle had grown over and around it, so deep that the slow beats of Guide's heart sometimes sounded like the tune of his name, long unspoken but never, ever forgotten. Guide surged up the remaining steps between them in a rush and dug his claws into Teyla's vest, dragging her face close enough that in another world they would have felt one another's breath. 

" _ His name _ ," Guide growled, though he was unsure of being able to hear any other name above the song his heart sang, ever-despairing and apparently ever-hopeful. Their queen had dispassionately relayed that they had made a runner of him after his disobedience, a full half-century ago, had told Guide how they had traded his tracker frequency for a pittance less than a decade after. He who had always been so kind but so aimless without Guide. 

"I–" Teyla reached out to grasp at his arm to steady herself on her toes, instinct winning out on a battlefield she was unaccustomed to. This was not a time for patience, however. Guide snarled in her face. 

" _ Tell me. _ " Her power was such that Guide couldn't compel her, not really, but the sudden fire in him was enough to project shadows, faint visions of tattooed mouth, long braid, that odd expansive smile, yes,  _ yes… _

Teyla sang his name,  _ his _ name, pitch-perfect and clear as the day in the creche Guide had first heard it. Teyla sang  _ Inquisitive Child _ , and  _ Savant _ . She sang  _ He Will Learn More Than Is Needed _ , and  _ Studious-But-Forgetful. _

_ _

"Scholar," Teyla said, and for the first time in fifty years the idea buried grief-deep in Guide's heart burst forth in joy. He didn't know what Teyla could read on the surface of his mind, or on his face in his dream, but Guide had no time for subtlety or deceit. Let her know. He didn't care. 

"I will open the ring in… Under an hour," Guide hissed, calculating his position against the nearest planet that would take him there, weighing the tattered remnants of his crew's respect and their precious untainted reserves against the idea, the  _ promise _ , of his long-lost Scholar. "I will be alone, and I will be unarmed." This open, he had little doubt Teyla could feel the truth of his words, likely as clearly as she could feel the passion that drove them. Let her feel. 

Guide shoved Teyla back and released her, using the momentum of her surprise to drive his eyes open and his body into movement, coat on and buckled almost before the colors of Atlantis had faded from his mind. He had a lot of distance to cover, in very little time. 


	2. Chapter 2

Wraith have no belief in the afterlife. They know about Alteran ascension, of course, just as much as they know their hunger keeps them from ever achieving it. They are also, as a rule,  _ intimately _ familiar with the random firing of the human brain near death that led so many human cultures to curiously parallel belief systems about a world beyond this one. And of course Scholar had felt the blowback of other wraith lives ended by his hand, though he wasn't certain he'd ever been near enough to death for it himself before. There had been a moment on the Genii homeworld where he thought Ronon had come for him, had led him to the ring and laid him down among the ferns. The last moment Scholar remembered had been peace and safety at long last, and wraith do  _ not _ believe in an afterlife, or cosmic reward or punishment, all of which meant that when he did wake up, in bright noise and an ecstasy he had gone so long without that he had forced himself to forget it, Scholar was left without a shorthand for what was happening to him.

Scholar was: In pain, but the sharp and clear pain of healing; in bed, or something like it; arched, head thrown back, a hand clutching the wrist of the hand digging into his chest; sobbing openly in joy and long-forgotten, long-denied pleasure; home, inasmuch as home is not a place, but a people, or in this case, a person. 

Afraid of what he might see, or not see, Scholar squeezed his eyes tightly shut, until a soft request in a voice so familiar it might have been his own opened them for him, and as the blinding light of love withdrew alongside the feeding organ embedded in Scholar's chest, there was Guide. Somewhat ragged, but  _ there,  _ and grinning like he was trying to split his face in two. 

_ my soul, _ they said as one, and Scholar threw his arms around Guide's neck. 

“ _ I'm so sorry, _ ” he muttered against Guide's skin, to the ever-familiar sounds of quiet shushing.  _ i couldn't bear to look for you and not find you. _

_ i found you. _ Scholar pulled back enough to trace the starburst over Guide's left eye, a path he could have, and had, easily etched out with his eyes closed. More tentatively, Guide touched the well-known brackets over Scholar's sinal pits and then, lighter than an insect's wing, the exile tattoos over Scholar's mouth. 

_ i am sorry as well, _ Guide told Scholar, true and sorrowful, and followed the brush of his fingertips with his lips. 

“ _ They mean nothing to me now. _ ” In the heat of the Gift, Scholar had seen the lost decades Guide had suffered under Genii imprisonment, as Guide had seen the heart-pounding, savage blur of Scholar's exile. It wasn't nothing, and it never would be, but next to the absence of his soul beside him, it was close enough. 

They lay for a long time in silence, pressed together tight enough they almost fit on the narrow bed, barely large enough for one tall wraith. The thoughts that passed between them were too quick and half-formed for real language, but after so many millennia together, even half a century apart wasn't enough to keep them from fitting back together like halves of a whole. 

The crackle of the loudspeaker made Scholar jump under Guide's weight, the tranquility momentarily replaced with blood and the smells of the forest, before Guide's iron grip on reality was able to bring him back down. Over the sound system, Sheppard cleared his throat apologetically.

“ _ Didn't mean to startle you there, Dr. Keller was just wondering if she could have the room back. There's some, you know, cleanup. We do have nicer rooms. If you need to. Get one _ .” Scholar closed his eyes to watch in amusement as the corners of Guide's mind that had grown cold and brittle at the interruption immediately began to warm and curl at the sound of the human's voice. 


	3. Chapter 3

John took his finger off the intercom button and watched as Todd climbed off of Schuyler and the table down below. 

"Small galaxy, huh?" The two wraith looked like the end of a Hallmark movie, just paler and toothier. Well, not much paler, but definitely greener. Todd was cradling Schuyler's right hand, as Schuyler watched with a grin that should've looked scarier with all those unnecessary teeth. 

"What do you mean?" Ronon asked, as Todd said something up toward the viewing platform that John didn't quite catch. 

"Help roll me down there?" Ronon grabbed the handles on John's wheelchair and started steering, because that was just the helpful kind of guy Ronon was. "Thanks. I just mean… Don't you think it's weird that I run into Todd, and you know Schuyler, and then it turns out they knew each other all along, and then there's them and Teyla… Don't you think it's weird?" Ronon was quiet for a moment as they slowed to a stop in front of the transporter. 

"I think you're on serious drugs," he observed, technically completely accurately. "I think knowing they, as you put it, 'know' each other makes it less weird. Todd saved you. Helped people. Sure, stabbed us in the back, but who hasn't? And Schuyler, the way he is with humans… No, it makes more sense."

"I don't think I followed that at all," John admitted, leaning forward to wave the transporter open. 

"It's like…" Ronon paused until he'd managed to wrestle John into the transporter, and then didn't press a button as the doors slid shut, which made John a little anxious about what, exactly, Ronon thought it was like. "It's like your planet's dumb rules about what gender their soldiers are into. There aren't that many of them who break the rule, and the ones who do kinda orbit around each other." 

"You're saying that treating humans like people is like being gay for wraith?" Was the first thought that managed to shove its way through the crowd at the forefront of John's brain and out his mouth. Then another one fought its way to the top, and John twisted around in the chair to stare up at Ronon, who was staring back at him with an odd look. "Wait, back up, why do you know about that?"

"Colonel Carter explained it to me after the first night I spent with the wraith here. Then after he left, a couple of the guys hit me up." Ronon shrugged, the unconcerned ripple looking even more impressive from John's seat down below. "I didn't take anybody up on it," he clarified after a moment, which left John wondering what Ronon had read on John's face to make him think John needed reassurance. 

"Good to know, I guess. Who–"

"And they were super clear I definitely wasn't allowed to talk to you about it."  _ That _ , for some reason, was when Ronon decided to slap the button that would transport them downstairs. "Sorry. Sounds like a rough time." 

"Wait," John started as the white light washed over them, "why–" but then the doors opened, and the guards outside the operating theater snapped to attention, and the conversation was over.  _ Why is he sorry _ , John was forced to wonder in silence, nodding as Ronon pushed him past the guards and into the room. 

"Hello, Sheppard," Todd purred at him, and John shivered with the sense memory of the wraith's lips on his cheek.  _ Maybe that's why _ . But that wasn't the same thing, really. John was pretty sure. 

Anyway, Todd looked pretty rough. He looked like he was standing with his usual ramrod posture, but John could see where he leaned back against the gurney Schuyler had come close to dying on, and the reflection in the glass of Schuyler's hand spread over his back seemed more a practical concern than an affectionate gesture. Not that John was great at reading wraith affectionate gestures in the moment. Todd did look about as ragged around the edges as he had when John had met him first, though his clothes were certainly newer. Schuyler, conversely, while still smeared here and there with black blood, looked about as clear-eyed and upright as John had ever seen him. The tattoos that continued symmetrically down his arms and torso were a bit of a surprise, though John couldn't say why, exactly, he was surprised. Idly, he wondered if Todd had more starbursts elsewhere, then looked up sharply as he realized Todd was talking to him. 

"What happened to you?" Todd asked, with an elegant wave of his fingers indicating, John assumed, the wheelchair. Todd had seen them on Earth, hadn't he? What a mess that had been.

"What, this old thing?" John echoed Todd's gesture, sweeping a hand grandly down at his legs. "Got in a fight with a building."

"You should see the other guy," Ronon cut in. And people thought he had no sense of humor. Schuyler laughed, bright and sudden, but Todd was looking down at his hands, and Schuyler's expression fell as quickly as it had brightened. His hand crept up to Todd's shoulder, and they shared a brief look, before Todd put his hands behind his back and made an effort to stand up straighter. It occurred to John that they probably were having a telepathic conversation, come to think of it, and that was an odd thing to be jealous of but here they were. 

"Will you recover?" Todd asked casually, but it was the kind of deliberate casual that came off awfully forced. The look that Schuyler gave the back of Todd's head, however, was anything but casual, though John couldn't tell if he was concerned or annoyed. 

"Oh, sure. Not as fast as Schuyler here, but I'll get by." Something flickered over Todd's face, and the sense memory of his lips was back in full force.  _ Trust me _ , he'd asked John. It was clear from the exhausted slump of his shoulders he couldn't spare enough to heal John, and it was just as clear by his expression that, to John's surprise, Todd was upset about it.  _ Huh _ . 

"Is the room I was in still uninhabited?" John blinked, glancing back at Schuyler, who looked, if anything, amused. 

"Huh?"

"You said we should get a nicer room. I was wondering if that one was still open." 

"Pretty open. It's not even bugged anymore," Ronon added, helpfully neglecting to mention that he'd been the one to take the cameras down in the first place (relying on the dubious maxim that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, he'd gone and just done it after Schuyler had left). 


	4. Chapter 4

It was the first time Guide had been allowed through the city unrestrained. They were not, of course, unguarded—there were the two sentries from the medical wing, as well as Dex and Sheppard, who as it turned out was in command of the city at the moment. Colonel Carter was not, apparently, dead, which Guide was surprised to find he was glad of. Their very short interaction had been as interesting as it had been antagonistic, and he could only hope whoever replaced her would be at least as entertaining as she had been, though of course they were unlikely to hold a candle to Sheppard. 

As Guide could have predicted, their walk through the city drew the eye of everyone they came across, though it was clear enough Sheppard was choosing routes to keep them out of high-traffic areas. That didn't stop them from passing by the odd soldier or scientist. Every one of the humans stopped what they were doing immediately and held their silence until the odd troupe had passed, their eyes rolling over Guide and Scholar with clear distrust. Guide supposed he couldn't blame them entirely, though the broken trust was as much their fault as his. Scholar wasn't helping keep a low profile, keeping an arm linked with Guide while he spoke animatedly to Dex. 

And hadn't that been an odd little surprise. Scholar had had human lovers before. They both had, both together and separately. But Dex? His hatred of the wraith was tangible even without telepathy. Even so, there he had shone in the midst of Scholar's memories, a strand of bright beads against a terrible and long dark. Stolen moments on the run, hands and mouth and, over and over, shocking in its brutal intimacy, the Gift. And then more recently, the unexpectedly rich gift of whole nights and quiet mornings. Not many of them. 

Sheppard, unusually, was quieter than his large companion. It was hard to tell with him, or else Guide lacked the depth of experience to tell, but Sheppard seemed oddly contemplative. Though Guide couldn't see any injury there, Sheppard kept brushing his hand over the right side of his face, as though he was feeling for a mark. He seemed odd about meeting Guide's eyes as well, which was normal for a human but unusual for Sheppard. At the sudden intruding thought that perhaps Sheppard had had some kind of brain injury since Guide had seen him last, a shudder rippled through him, bringing Scholar's attention back to Guide with a wave of concern. 

He stared a moment, then unlinked his arm from Guide's with a look of determination and leaned around Dex to speak to Sheppard.

"What did you mean, about the building?" Sheppard was mostly hidden by Dex and Scholar, but even so Guide could see him twitch in surprise. 

"The what? Oh. We, uh, got caught in a collapsing building. No big deal."

"It sounds like a big deal. Did you hit your head?" It had been a long time since Guide had felt secondhand embarrassment, and he didn't think he'd missed it. 

_ Scholar _. Guide found himself waved off with a subtle movement of Scholar's fingers and the vague impression of shooing. Sheppard looked more puzzled than insulted, which was both a good and a bad thing when it came to asking about head wounds. 

"Not too bad, I don't think. Nothing I haven't had before. Besides, it's not like I'm using it for anything, am I?" 

"John got impaled," Dex broke in, a little too loud to be comfortable, and Guide felt a chill crawl down his spine again. From the looks of him, Dex was at least as uncomfortable with the conversation as Guide was. Even Scholar looked startled. 

"But you are going to be all right?" Scholar asked, as unsubtly as ever, because Guide couldn't bring himself to. Because he must have been listening to Guide all but scream it at the back of Sheppard's head, unable to make a sound showing weakness, ignoring his shaking hands that do and don't have anything to do with how fragile humans are and how terrible getting attached to them is. 

"I told you, yeah. It just takes longer for us humans."

"Not necessarily," slipped away from Guide before he could reel it back in. Even Sheppard was twisting to look directly at him. From Scholar, he felt the waves of worry pick up and crash over him again. 

"Meaning," Scholar said slowly, glowering as though daring Guide to interrupt, "we wish that we could help you, and regret that we currently cannot." It was at least a half truth, and Guide was grateful for the 'we' to hide behind. He did not interrupt. 

The room they'd left Scholar in, to Guide's surprise, was not a barred and exposed cell in the center of the city, but a relatively pleasant-looking room, albeit a small one. There was a creased book facedown on the small desk, next to a stack of gray clothing and, also surprisingly, a radio. Several corners of the room did look cleaner than the rest, as though they had recently been relieved of attachments. Guide turned to stare at Sheppard, parked in the doorway with Dex behind him looking like a monolith. 

"When should we expect our interrogation to begin?" Guide asked, folding his hands behind his back to hide their tremor. Beside him, Scholar made an offended noise, but Scholar was always the optimist between them. 

"It'd be nice to have more details on what went down, but I wouldn't call it an interrogation… As for when, I guess that depends. Do you guys normally sleep for days at a time?" For this, Sheppard glanced between Guide and Scholar, and Guide was momentarily at a loss from the complexity of the answer. No, wraith tended to sleep either a few hours at a time or for millennia, but they generally didn't go for days outside of hibernation pods. Behind Guide, Scholar cleared his throat.

"No, that was an extenuating circumstance." Guide pushed out _ concern _ , got back a quick blanket of reassurance. _ my mind was fighting itself. bad fifty years. better now. _

"Why don't we call it a night, and you can call in tomorrow morning?" Was it nighttime on Lantea? The windows were yellow and orange, but Guide supposed the light coming through them might have been moonlight. The planet did have a large moon. 

Guide sat on the edge of the narrow bed as Scholar sorted things out with the humans, feeling the weight of every moment of the years he had given to Scholar in the operating theater. Things had fallen apart so quickly and so badly with the Atlanteans before, but staying on his guard was exhausting and Scholar's inexplicable trust was infectious. He focused on unfastening his boots, and by the time he had gotten one open and off, he found his hands joined by Scholar's, as Scholar knelt before him. 

_ you ran so fast to my rescue _ . Scholar's mind was a warm bath, a long-missed embrace. Guide leaned back on his elbows and let Scholar's steady (and _ whole _, though that was another issue entirely) hands finish the fastenings of his boots. 

_ i didn't look hard enough for you before. i am sorry. _Scholar tugged his other boot off and pressed in, resting his elbows on either side of Guide's hips. Guide found himself unable to bite back a smile, between Scholar's wide-open eyes and wide-open heart. 

_ you found me now. i was afraid to look for you and not find you too. _Scholar sat back on his heels enough to work on Guide's coat from the bottom up. Guide pushed a shaking hand into Scholar's hair, feeling the slick strands between his fingers. There were twigs and tangles in there, and sticky streaks of blood. 

_ you are a mess _ , Guide thought, and _ i never want to be apart from you _ at the same time. They met halfway, Guide curling down and Scholar pushing up on his hands, his spine a sharp curve. It was by necessity a gentle kiss, between two wraith, not more than a brief press of lips. The habit of human kisses had lost its novelty between them thousands of years ago, but the time they had spent apart was enough that it felt almost new to Guide, and as ever he felt secondhand the heat it sparked in Scholar. 

_ never for so long _, Scholar agreed passionately, the purpose behind the promise rattling around in Guide's skull. He pushed Guide's coat down his arms, and Guide obligingly moved so Scholar could pull it off and stand to fold it over the back of the room's singular chair. And then he remained standing, back to Guide, and Guide felt a small prickle of unease. 

"_ What? _" He asked aloud, pushing himself back to sit against the wall. Scholar pulled his braid over one shoulder and began to unpick it, which was either nervous or contemplative—Guide was never sure. 

"_ I don't think we should leave. _ " _ i don't want to leave here. _The two thoughts overlapped one another, more complement than contradiction. 

Guide stared at Scholar's back as he worked on loosening his braid. He knew Scholar could feel the contradictory impulses tugging at him, and let the memories open up to Scholar as well: Heavy leather cuffs around his wrists; the first bite of his feeding organ into Sheppard's chest, and the gasps of the human when the flow of life reversed; the cage they put him in; the easy flow of working with the humans, even the soft and bitchy one; the sting of their inevitable betrayal (interesting–this one sparked an echo in Scholar, though also not his own memory). The sweet relief of the dying human's last shreds of life, followed by how own bewilderingly strong reaction to the disgust writ large on Sheppard's face. 

"_ They will starve me again, _ " and _ i do not want them to see me feed _ , Guide told Scholar at once, deliberately declining to suppress the soft whisper that replaced _ them _ , more truthfully, with _ Sheppard. _ Scholar turned, wordless, and held out his whole right hand, with its faint pink scar. 

_ there is another way _, he sighed, and Guide in his exhaustion was unable to hold back the vehemence of his reflexive refusal. Scholar flinched back, curling his fingers protectively over his palm, before Guide could stop himself. 

"_ If you were that injured again—" _

_ or if Sheppard is? _The question wasn't malicious, exactly, but it wasn't kind. And it wasn't wrong. 

"_ Or him. _ " _ or Dex. _ " _ I do not want to be helpless. _" Guide felt Scholar withdraw a little, watched his mouth settle into a flat line, and tried not to sink into reflexive guilt. 

"_ I do not know that I could do it alone, anyway." _Even withdrawn as Scholar was, Guide felt the sudden ache like it was his own, and rubbed contemplatively at his sternum. 

_ you love Lastlight _, Guide observed, picking out a facet of Scholar's shared pain and holding it up to the light. 

"_ I did _ ," Scholar hissed, yanking off the tattered remnants of his previous Atlantean uniform. The soft _ he died _ was almost, but not entirely drowned out, and beneath it Guide felt echoes of his own hand on Scholar's chest, and heard that final, frantic lie in his own voice. What he notably did not see, however, though Guide was admittedly hesitant to pry, was Lastlight's final moment. 

_ you felt it? you saw it? _Each question landed like a blow on Scholar's heart, but Guide held his eyes, let him feel that these thoughts were not meant to be weapons. Though Scholar sat to remove his boots, he didn't look away, which Guide supposed was a kind of victory. 

_ i cannot feel him now. _Briefly, Guide entertained the thought of saying nothing. Of allowing Scholar to mourn, to move on, to live. Of letting the shard of Lastlight heal over in Scholar's heart until it was a dull and impersonal part of him like so many of their human loves had become. But they were too close for secrets, and hiding required a distance Guide refused to put himself through again. 

"_They held me on the homeworld first, until I had... Lost hope.__ Only after did they move me to the planet where I met these humans. There is something about the Genii bunker that masks the songs of our people. I reached for you… For our Queen… For anyone. For years. And all I heard back were echoes. _ " The stabs of sorrow, not his own, built to a crescendo, and Guide held out his hand to Scholar, who laced their hands together palm-to-palm and didn't so much as flinch at the ineffective, instinctual prodding of Guide's feeding organ against a recently whole hand. " _ It could be the radiation, or their shielding, or a combination of the two, but silence here is not an answer. _" 

_ he could be alive? _

_ i was. _

Guide squeezed Scholar's hand and released him to go wash the blood and the loam of Locus out of his hair. The bed was not particularly comfortable, but he'd had worse; once he'd shifted himself onto his back he felt the exhaustion that he'd been staving off press him into the thin mattress like g-forces. In the other room, he could feel Scholar's presence as brightly as if Guide was beside him, touched with worry for Lastlight (and not a little for Guide, he could see, and the problem of hunger) but otherwise the same shining star of hope he ever was. 

Guide let his eyes drift shut, and sank back into Scholar's light. 

The rill of Scholar's amusement woke him as much as Scholar peeling him out of the rest of his clothes did. Once he was awake again, or near enough to it, Guide could feel the alien heat of Scholar's arousal as clear as a sun, and even as he scowled in half-mock displeasure at being woken up, he opened his arms to Scholar's body and his heart to Scholar's heart. Scholar was on him in a moment, damp and hot from washing, sitting astride his thighs. 

Reflexively, he held out his right hand to Scholar, who took it with a rueful twist of his mouth. Cradling Guide's hand in both of his, Scholar stroked his thumbs down either side of Guide's feeding slit. His grin broke into a sigh as Guide rolled their hips together, then into a groan. Guide tugged his hand out of Scholar's loose grip and pressed it to Scholar's mouth, thumb and forefinger brushing the tattoos over his sinal pits. Not his favorite kiss, but first and foremost what mattered was kissing Scholar, who purred in agreement and carefully licked past Guide's spines and into the depth of his feeding organ. 

One-handed, Guide tugged Scholar up onto his knees and closer, left hand bruise-tight on Scholar's hip. His own harsh breathing was the loudest sound in the room, but all he could hear was the rapid thumping of Scholar's pulse, the soft, slick noises of his mouth, his muffled sighs. Bracing a hand (no longer a promise or a danger, only the empty threat of one) against Guide's chest, Scholar sank down onto Guide and began to move. 

It was brief, after that, with Scholar wound as tight as he was and their feedback loop open and screaming. 

After, Guide released Scholar's hip, and then his face, tracing fingertips apologetically over the scores torn around his mouth by Guide's spines. Scholar's presence was a warm, soft buzz of contentment as he draped himself over Guide, his anxieties momentarily banished by their closeness, and at last Guide slipped into a dreamless sleep. 


	5. Chapter 5

Scholar unpeeled himself from Guide's side some time later, grimacing at the feeling though of course he had nobody but himself to blame. His knee and so many other places were still glowing with the hot itch of the recently healed, too, which added unpleasantly to last night's stickiness. Not that it wasn't worthwhile. The stickiness, anyway. As for the wounds, well. 

Scholar hadn't killed that many humans in a long time. 

He still wasn't sure if he thought they deserved it or not, but his tardy philosophizing didn't make them any less dead. Or any more dead. Hearing about the Genii accidental psychic dampening certainly complicated matters. Was it better or worse if Lastlight was their captive, rather than their successful kill? Pulling on the clothing the Lanteans had left him, Scholar contemplated his sleeping Guide. Certainly it was better to have him than not to have him. And he'd always been more focused on their work for the survival of their people, more than Scholar's admittedly lofty ideals, so maybe the flashes of what his purpose had been for the Genii, leaked through the Gift, were not the devastation they would have been for Scholar. And they wouldn't be for Lastlight, but of course Lastlight had no feeding organ anymore. And what would they make of that? Anybody's guess. 

The cursory probes Scholar had sent in Lastlight's direction as Guide slept beneath him had all failed to connect in exactly the way Scholar had been afraid they would. It was impossible to say if their recipient was gone or merely masked—Scholar lacked the psychic power to punch through anything but a mutual connection. 

How fortunate he knew someone who did not. 

To Scholar's surprise, the door opened when he waved for it to, and into an empty hallway at that. For a moment, he was concerned that something had happened to the Lanteans during the night, but then the radio in his hand crackled to life. 

" _ You owe me twenty dollars, _ " it grumbled at him incomprehensibly with Dr. McKay's voice. When Scholar cast about for an explanation, he found one of those black domes in a high corner of the hall, like the ones that had been removed from his room. Scholar waved. 

"You have to know I have no idea what that means," he said into the radio. 

" _ Apparently John thinks the Marines have better things to do than eavesdrop on wraith banging, so we had to 'volunteer' for watches. I had a bet you wouldn't be out until after noon, but I guess I lost this one. _ " Some of that made sense to Scholar. He supposed the rest was possible with context clues. 

"Is it very late? I admit I do not have much of a concept of time right now." The window of the room was translucent, but not by much, and it seemed as though none of Atlantis's hallways had windows. 

" _ You could say that. You know that part of an all-nighter where you're beginning to contemplate dropping out of university because how bad could flipping burgers be compared to  _ this _ ? It's about that late. Or early. Take your pick. _ "

"Sounds late," Scholar said, feeling lost. "Am I supposed to come find you, then?"

" _ What? No, don't be stupid, you'll get lost forever and then we'll have a wraith ghost wandering the halls of Atlantis. Just sit tight, I'm almost there. Unless you already wandered off." _ Scholar turned toward the sound of the transporter around the corner. " _ You didn't wander off, did– _ oh. There you are." Dr. McKay rounded the corner and abruptly clicked the radio off, looking somehow startled even though he had come looking for Scholar in the first place. 

"Here I am," Scholar agreed. "Do you have restraints for me?" McKay made a face.

"No, apparently the combination of Ronon's referral, you giving up your hand-mouth-thing and whatever future-me said to John have convinced him you're harmless. Or," he amended with an air of smugness Scholar did not understand, " _ mostly _ harmless."

"I–"

"I mean we're not going to arm you or put you on an away team, at least not yet, assuming you're staying, which doesn't seem very likely, given our history with Todd and your… I'm sorry, you were saying?" McKay did look exhausted, true to his word (whatever they meant). 

"I was hoping to speak to Teyla Emmagan. If you believe this is too early, however…" He hadn't wanted to risk angering her in reaching out telepathically without permission. 

"Probably. No, wait, probably not, actually. She and the baby–I can't believe she has a  _ baby _ now–are probably wandering around the city. Apparently that's the only way they can get him to settle down at night." It had been such a long time since Scholar had met a human infant, and on the one hand that sounded delightful. On the other hand, he imagined it would be much harder to convince Teyla Emmagan to help find Lastlight if he had to argue with her over the sleeping infant that Lastlight had tried to steal. Without too much of an invasion of her privacy (Scholar thought, hoping Teyla Emmagan would agree), he opened his mind a bit to the idea of her, and it immediately became clear that McKay was correct, that she was currently pacing hallways not too far from them. 

Scholar started walking and, after a moment, McKay scrambled after him. The silence lasted until they reached the first transporter (not very long), and Scholar stopped short trying to figure out which of the controls did what.

"Where, uh, are we going today?" McKay asked anxiously, which seemed redundant. Scholar thought for a moment. 

"Teyla Emmagan is three floors up, and near the other side of the tower. In the open air?" McKay stared. "I do not know how this transporter works." 

"You know, sometimes I forget she's literally psychic. Three floors? That must be one of the balconies up there. There're some pretty good ones, I think one of them wraps most of the way around." McKay waved his hand over the controls of the transporter and the white light took them three floors up. Without a pause in conversation, McKay stepped back out of the transporter. "Hey can I ask you something?" He did not wait for an answer. "Do you know what's wrong with Beckett?"

"I have no idea who that is," Scholar answered automatically, then frowned as a spark of recognition hit him. "No, that was the human who developed the retrovirus. I was under the impression he was dead." Which was, he supposed, a malady indeed, though it didn't sound as though that was what McKay meant, and judging from the look on McKay's face, it definitely wasn't the answer he had wanted. 

"So were we, and I guess he is, but I guess Michael cloned him or something, because we found him in a lab." Scholar stopped short, stunned. The human continued on a few places without Scholar before he realized and turned around. "You really didn't know?" Mutely, Scholar shook his head. Models of cloning were a good way to learn about a genome, but actually building an adult human from a genetic sample seemed like an awful idea. The projections always seemed to fall apart after a few months. "Apparently Michael needed his help with the Hoffan virus—the one that either makes humans immune to you guys or kills them? But I guess he did something to Beckett so he's dying, without some kind of injection."

"Did not do enough, more like," Scholar mused, digesting this bit of information.  _ Poor Lastlight, in over your head and still diving.  _ "I have never cloned a human in practice, but in projections your unstable cellular structures always degrade within months. It never seemed worthwhile to pursue."

"Sure looks like Michael pursued it," McKay muttered. "You're saying there's no way to fix him? That's it, that's just what happens to clones?"

"I am saying that I do not know. Preservation of human telomeres has never been a field of study for me, except as they are affected by the hybridization efforts. I could likely figure something out, given years of study. Or much less time," Scholar amended, both slyly and accurately, "if I had Michael's assistance."

"And I was under the impression  _ he _ was dead." Not that he'd had much basis for comparison, but McKay looked as grim as Scholar had seen him. "And good riddance." 

Well. At least he was honest. 

Scholar brushed past McKay and continued down the corridor, feeling that familiar mix of offense and chagrin that hearing about Lastlight from the Lanteans so often sparked in him. It wasn't really to his credit that Scholar had effectively put the virus out of his mind whenever it had come up in Lastlight's company. Preferring to focus on one problem at a time was a convenient excuse, and one that even Scholar couldn't take seriously, given the amount of time he had spent in bed with Lastlight. But this wasn't really Lastlight's fault, was it? Even the Lanteans seemed aware that they shouldn't have backed Lastlight into a corner like they did, though of course the revelation seemed awfully late. There was no way they could know how unbearable loneliness was for wraith, even at Scholar and Guide's ages, but more so as young as Lastlight was. 

_ Scholar. _ His name brought him up short, McKay narrowly avoiding smacking into his back. Teyla Emmagan, backlit by the greenish pre-dawn in the open doorway, looked like the mother goddess of a primitive culture with her child in her arms. It was immediately apparent that the infant was at least as much a telepath as his mother, his nascent dreams half-formed and loud as cries. Scholar bowed to Teyla Emmagan. 

_ I am pleased both you and the child are well _ , he greeted her honestly. 

_ Thank you.  _ Her mind had never precisely welcomed Scholar, but at the moment Teyla Emmagan felt like an autumn evening that could descend into winter at a moment's notice.  _ I could feel you searching for me. Why? _

"Well, are you going to say something, or are you just going to stare at each other?" McKay hissed, to his credit much more quietly than his speaking voice. Also to his credit, it only took him a moment or two longer of looking at them for him to realize it. "Oh right,  _ telepaths _ . Right. I'll just. Excuse me." He inched onto the balcony past Teyla Emmagan, who gave him a friendly nod at odds with the looming cold Scholar could feel from her. 

_ I have a favor to ask.  _ Scholar tried to soak his voice in every drop of the deference Teyla Emmagan inspired in him, though he could already feel her denial looming like storm clouds. This was not the right time, but it was too late to stop now and begin again later. Teyla Emmagan inclined her head in a much less friendly invitation. 

_ You may ask. _

_ I suspect that Lastlight may be alive, on Locus, only beyond my power to contact. But not beyond yours.  _ Already, Scholar could feel her anger boiling up behind her steady gaze. He pressed on.  _ I would request that you make an attempt to contact him, to verify– _

_ No.  _ It was a slammed door. It was the first heavy blizzard of winter. It was finality. Scholar swallowed.

_ I believe he can be of help in solv– _

_ I said no.  _ Drone fire in the vacuum of space. Decompression. 

_ All he wanted was a h– _

_ No, Scholar.  _ A single, fatal shot to the head. Two in the chest just to be sure. 

_ He can help sav– _

_ _ " _ If he is not dead, I can only hope that his death is long in coming and very painful, and my only regret is that I had no part in it. _ " Teyla Emmagan did not seem to be aware that she had spoken aloud as well, her voice echoing so loud in Scholar's mind that it nearly drowned out the fury in her voice, until her son began to scream in her arms. "I will not be a messenger girl for wraith again, and certainly not for  _ him _ ."  _ He took my people from me and I hope he suffers endlessly _ . 

Scholar said nothing.

What could he say?

The Queen had spoken. 


	6. Chapter 6

The world was aches and beeping, and John wanted no part in it, but unfortunately he was apparently in charge of this mess for the time being, and as such he probably wasn't allowed to smack the snooze button. Again. 

With a groan, he leaned over until he could turn the alarm off. Displaying unusual foresight, he'd set out painkillers and a bottle of water on the table next to his bed the night before, though even that far still sucked to stretch with a hole in his side. John knocked the pills back and very, very carefully lowered himself back down into bed, having previously learned his lesson about flopping onto a building's worth of bruises. The ceiling of his room was only marginally more interesting than the ceiling of the infirmary, and he was admittedly missing the adjustable beds at the moment, but he couldn't exactly say he was sorry he'd finally twisted Jennifer's arm into letting him go. With the wheelchair and excessively frequent check-ups, of course. 

Much too soon for the painkillers to have started working, John's radio started chirping. It took a lot of shuffling and not a little cursing to figure out how to reach out and grab it without stretching anything. He might've even been a little winded. This was disgraceful. 

"Sheppard," John answered at last, then cringed as the wall of sound known as Rodney McKay greeted him across the airwaves. 

" _ Oh thank God, I thought you might've died in your sleep. _ "

"Not yet, but the day is very,  _ very _ young, and I'm still thinking about it." The general pain of existence was softening around the edges a little, though not quite to a point John felt like he could get himself out of bed. 

" _ Well, don't do that. The good news is that I owe you twenty dollars. _ " John pushed the heel of his hand into his eye and scrubbed until the memory of that conversation resurfaced.

"Schuyler left at the crack of dawn, huh?"

" _ The room anyway, yeah, though he's already gone back in. He had a chat with Teyla that, uh, didn't go great. Nobody's hurt! Physically. Actually, can I talk to you in person? Things are complicated. _ "

"Sure, Rodney," John sighed, dreading the idea of trying to get out of bed and pajamas and back into uniform. "I can meet you in, say, half an hour? I'm trying to convince myself to actually get up."

" _ Oh, well, more good news: no need _ ," Rodney said, and John's door chimed. One definite upside to Atlantis was the power to lock and unlock doors without getting out of bed, John reflected as Rodney barreled through the doorway and onto the window seat. 

"All right then." At least the painkillers were helping make John more agreeable, he suspected, even though they weren't quite up to their stated task of killing, as much as badly injuring, the pain. "I assume there must be bad news." 

"Yeah, Schuyler thinks Michael is alive. He asked Teyla to look for him, and apparently she's kind of done passing messages to wraith, which, I guess I don't blame her, that sounds awful." As the primary person asking for Teyla's telepathic assistance, John grimaced. Although… 

"He's a wraith, why can't he look himself? Or did the retrovirus get rid of that?" Rodney shook his head vigorously.

"No, I asked, it's not that. Apparently something about the Genii bunker blocks wraith telepathic communication. Radiation, the shielding, Schuyler doesn't know. That's why they were able to hide Todd for so long. Nobody could hear him." John found himself wincing in sympathy, though he didn't quite mean to. It sounded like Teer's village on steroids—completely cut off from his people, with no expectation of rescue, for fifty damn years. Thinking about it, John was a little surprised Todd was as sane as he was. 

"Still, why does he think Teyla can help?"

"Apparently being a woman and a little bit wraith means she has more brute psychic strength than your average male wraith. Again, according to Schuyler. Though that pans out with our experience, I guess."

"Huh," was all John could think of to say to that. "Did Todd wake up?"

"Not that I saw, but we don't have eyes inside the room anymore, so it's anybody's guess. That reminds me," Rodney said suddenly, picking at the hem of his shirt, "what turned you around on Todd anyway? Last I knew, he was still on the 'Do Not Trust Ever' list that  _ all _ wraith belong on, and now he's okay in basically an unsecured room? What happened?" Laboriously, John pushed himself up into a sitting position against the wall. This was probably a better conversation to have while sitting than while staring up at the ceiling. 

"I might not have told Colonel Carter everything about what happened when I went to the future," John admitted slowly. Rodney looked back at him with a darkening frown. 

"So you didn't run into me?"

"Yes! Well, no, there was a hologram recording of you in the room where we found the hologram recordings when we got here. That was true. There was just… Also a person." 

"Todd," Rodney guessed skeptically. John nodded. "Was he alone? What was it, some kind of super long-term trap?"

"Yeah, he was… Very alone." Asleep for thousands of years, all to wait for a human he hadn't seen in many times that span. "It wasn't a trap, he was waiting for me to show up so he could send me back. You figured it out, but I guess the, uh, humans wouldn't have survived long enough."

"He told you that?" 

" _ You _ told me that." Todd had called Rodney and Jennifer family, and John had believed him. "Look, it's hard to explain…" He could still feel the dry buss of Todd's lips across his face, as clearly as he could still feel the bite of Todd's feeding organ and the ecstasy that had followed, lying on his back in the Locus ferns. 

"Try me." Rodney had that stubborn, set look to him that John had made the mistake of not taking seriously in the early days, because the way he twisted his mouth and crossed his arms made Rodney look petulant, or childish, neither of which he was. At least, not most of the time. 

"Okay. I stepped through the gate. Todd woke up. He explained when I was. He showed me what it looked like outside and told me why. He showed me the recording you had made, and you were… Different. You told me to call him when we had to. He called you and Jennifer by your first names, called you his family, like you'd known each other for a lifetime and he missed having you around. Crazy, right?" Rodney impatiently flapped a hand for him to go on, his expression giving John no clue of what he was thinking. "Apparently, I had to wait a few centuries to catch my solar flare ride home, so Todd put me in his stasis thing and went outside to die."  _ He kissed me, Rodney. He kissed me and he told me to trust him, and I did like that was all I was waiting for. _ "Like I was the last thing he was waiting for before he went to sleep. Looking at the stars." 

Rodney looked back down at the stitching he was pulling out of the hem of his shirt, gave the thread a few more half-hearted picks. John leaned back against the wall and waited for him to process. 

"You want to meet him again. Future Todd," Rodney said, displaying one of those unusual moments of human insight that always startled people who didn't care to get to know him. 

"His future sounded pretty great. Well. Some of it did. The bad parts, I think we might be able to avoid. The good parts, I think we need him for. And Schuyler. And, unfortunately, Michael too."

"Oh," Rodney said. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, pretty sure." Okay, here went nothing. John swung his legs over the side of the bed, gave himself a moment to steel his nerves, and pushed himself to his feet. On the bright side, his vision only went black for a few seconds, and when it cleared he was still on his feet, and the painkillers seemed to be doing their job in a recognizable fashion. "I should probably get dressed now." It was supposed to be a dismissal, but when Rodney stood, it was to inch around into John's field of vision.

"Do you need help with that?"

"No," John said firmly, then tried to take his shirt off. When his vision cleared this time, he was sitting back on his bed, and he had a lot less faith in painkillers. "Okay," he admitted, "I probably do."

Rodney helped him get changed, and helped him into the wheelchair, without another word. Sometimes John felt bad for how little they got along in the early days, how mean he'd gotten, before he remembered how much of a bastard Rodney was then too. 

By the time they got to the balcony Rodney said he and Schuyler had left Teyla fuming on, Teyla was long gone. John was initially concerned she might've decided she didn't want to be bothered and holed up somewhere in the city they'd never find her. This concern lasted right up until the woman herself answered her door chime, looking about as pleased as one might expect a new mother who hasn't slept a full night in a week to look. 

"John," she greeted shortly. "Rodney. Good morning. I have just managed to convince Torren to sleep while stationary, and I was about to take advantage of the opportunity to do the same." John cringed guiltily, and Rodney must have pulled a face above his head as well, because as Teyla glanced between them, her already displeased expression got even less happy. 

"We can come back another time," John tried. 

"I suspect I know what you have come to ask, and I suspect you already know my answer. Good day." 

"Sorry." To John's immense surprise, Rodney leaned over him to catch the door before it could shut completely. Teyla seemed startled as well. "I know it's a lot, but I think it might actually be important," Rodney said. Caught off-guard, Teyla stepped back and allowed them in.

Her room was dark, with homespun curtains that John didn't remember seeing before, and quiet. As the door slid shut behind them, John gestured at the wicker cradle in the corner and made a gesture he hoped conveyed,  _ is it okay to talk or will he wake up and then you'll kill us after all _ ? Smiling a little despite herself, Teyla tapped her forefinger against her lips and then pushed her palm toward the floor:  _ just keep it down. _

"I cannot imagine a reason you would ask me to contact Michael," she said, settling cross-legged on her bed. "So please. Enlighten me." John looked at Rodney, who was looking expectantly back at him. Okay, looked like this was his circus. 

"When I went to the future, it wasn't just a recording of Rodney; Todd was there too. Both of them, Rodney and Todd, told me we needed to get the whole wraith gang together in order to settle our problems. So." John drummed his fingertips on the armrest of the wheelchair. "I'm not gonna ask you to have a conversation, just confirm if Michael's alive and in a Genii prison. Then we can figure things out from there."

"He stole my  _ family _ , John. Experimented on them, and who knows what he was planning to do to me!" Teyla hissed through her teeth, visibly struggling with her own mandate for quiet. "Why should he not be left to suffer, even if he is alive?" 

"Because he can fix the problems he created."

"And more importantly," Rodney added, "Schuyler's pretty sure he  _ will _ , if Schuyler asks." John nodded. 

"I cannot fathom why you trust any of them. I had thought you'd been in this galaxy long enough to know  _ wraith always lie _ ." Teyla's fists were clenched tightly in her bedding, her whole body in hard and aggressive angles. 

"We screwed up pretty bad with Michael. Worse than we thought, I think. I'm not saying that makes what he did right, I'm  _ not _ , I just think being separated like that does something to wraith. Half of the time our deals have gone south because we've started something before the other guy could. I think maybe we should try…" John stumbled abruptly to a halt before the word  _ love _ could make it out.  _ Try love _ , Jesus, how bad did he hit his head?

"Taking the hand we're offered, instead of checking for knives," Rodney supplied, which might not actually have been better. "Okay, that's not a good metaphor for making friends with wraith at all, but you get what I mean, don't you?"

"It is an excellent metaphor, because their hands  _ always _ contain knives. You are asking too much." Teyla stood to usher them out, but Rodney held his ground, and John… Also did not roll anywhere. 

"He can save Beckett, Teyla. Him and Schuyler backwards-engineered how to change Schuyler's DNA in three months, they can probably fix whatever Michael did to the Athosians even faster. I bet they can stop the plague." Rodney caught himself ramping up and visibly reined it back in before Teyla could say anything. In the corner, Torren remained mercifully asleep. 

"And if you are wrong? When they betray us, as they have so often before, the blood of everyone they slay will be on our hands. Even Schuyler's claims of pacifism proved to be worthless."

"To be fair," John cut in, "I think that between getting them off of Atlantis and escaping their little torture hole, I've probably killed more Genii than Schuyler has, and I can't say I feel too bad about it. Speaking of people who betrayed us."

"I mean that's a long list too, isn't it? Humans who stabbed us in the back? Hell, to some of SG-1, I probably still belong on that list." Rodney smiled wryly, and without humor. "And yet here I am."

Teyla stared them down, despite being technically (and temporarily) taller than only one of them. From this angle, he could see the muscles in her jaw twitch with her tension, even as she smoothed her expression deliberately into a stone wall. When she got mad, it was so easy to see the Queen in her, and John was glad that she couldn't read human minds as well as wraith. 

"If he missteps, he gets put down. No questions. No experiments. No prison. He dies." John swallowed, heard Rodney's shaky exhale behind him. 

"Sounds good to me," he said at last, and Teyla nodded grimly. 

"Rodney, would you watch Torren? I do not want even the thought of Michael near my son." Without waiting for an answer, Teyla swept past them and out, leaving John to awkwardly wheel himself in a tight circle, and Rodney to stand next to the cradle and stare at it like it held a live bomb.

"What do I do if he wakes up?" Rodney muttered. "What if he starts  _ crying _ ?"

"I don't know, Rodney. Pick him up and rock him, probably. I don't think this is gonna take long." John shrugged back at Rodney, then managed to scoot himself on out of Teyla's room and into the corridor, where Teyla had stopped a few yards away and was waiting for him. In her infinite compassion, she stepped behind his chair and took hold of the handles, steering him down the hall.

It was not a comfortable silence by a long stretch, but John wasn't inclined to be the one to break it, and it didn't seem like Teyla was feeling especially chatty either. The room they ended up in was one in which Teyla had often handed him his own ass in a sling, which John wasn't sure if he should take as a message. Probably should. Teyla left him against a wall and went to sit cross-legged in the center of the room, her back ramrod-straight as always. She looked at him, her eyes finally as calm as the rest of her face, and John didn't know what she thought of him and was abruptly afraid to ask.

"I would like this to be very clear, John. I respect you and your leadership. I believe you have made many good choices, but I do not believe this is one, and if it turns out that I am correct, I will not hesitate to do what is necessary to protect my son. Is that clear?" John nodded dumbly. What could he say to that?

"Good," Teyla said, and closed her eyes. She was silent longer than the other times, long enough that John had just started to wonder if she'd made good on her wish to go to sleep when he saw Teyla frown minutely. 

"I cannot sense any wraith on Locus, but there is… I do not know how to describe it. It is like a wall made of the sound of a thousand people humming at once, each individual brick exactly the same." It sounded nonsensical at first, but Teyla's words struck an image, buried deep in John's memory. He'd felt that wall before, somehow, had felt the resistance of the hum deepen into screams that never lessened or budged for fifty years. Huh. 

"Can you tell if there's anything behind it?"

"No. Wait. I see a weak spot." Teyla's hands clenched on her knees. "I can get through if I just–" the lines of her arms loosened suddenly, and she took a deep breath like a diver surfacing. "I am through."

"Do you see him? Or hear him, whatever."

"There is a voice down here. Only one. It is very faint, I need to move closer. I think I hear him sc–" 

Then Teyla was on her feet and panting like she'd run for miles, her hands in fists in front of her, her feet planted wide in defense. She stared past John without seeing him, wild enough that he risked agony to twist around in his chair and make sure nothing had snuck up on them. Through the wall. After a long moment, she let her arms fall to her sides, visibly struggling to bring her heaving breaths under control. 

"He is there," she confirmed, shakily, "and he is in  _ so much pain _ ."


	7. Chapter 7

Scholar seemed surprised to see Guide already awake when he stormed back into their tidy cell, his pace stuttering to a halt a step from the bed Guide sat on. As it happened, the book on the side table contained a startlingly long list of Earth names, and had proved only slightly more interesting than staring at the ceiling and trying not to pry, after Guide had been awakened by a sudden hot flush of rage that was not his own. As Guide had known him before, Scholar was so angry so rarely that it had taken a moment for Guide to realize where the alien emotion was coming from. He let himself pry only briefly, dipping into Scholar's thoughts long enough to ascertain he was in no danger, and no longer. The idea of joining him was just as brief, as Guide noticed the absence of a radio on the table with the strange book. He was still not convinced the hospitality of the Atlanteans wasn't a trap, and chasing Scholar through the city alone seemed like an excellent excuse for one of the humans to shoot him. Not that he suspected he'd be able to chase very quickly at the moment, either. 

It wasn't long before Scholar returned, at any rate, and Guide set the book facedown beside him (evidently the name Sheppard had given him described an Earth animal that he had no reference for).

_ are you all right?  _ Scholar nodded unconvincingly, dropping down onto the bed beside Guide.

_ i asked Teyla Emmagan to look for Lastlight. _

_ brave,  _ Guide observed. To take the edge off of Scholar's displeasure, he dug out the end of Scholar's braid and began to unwind. 

_ she said no. _

_ who could have guessed?  _ To Guide's surprise, Scholar sat up, yanking his hair out of Guide's hand. The tattoos over his mouth made him look angrier, and he was indeed angrier than Guide had expected. 

" _ They did this to him in the first place _ !" Scholar growled, his hands curling into fists. The individual words sliced the air like blades. 

_ i doubt they see it that way. they have a bad habit of refusing to learn about our kind, as their proposed genocide implies.  _ Guide reached out his hand to Scholar, who reluctantly brushed their fingertips together. 

_ i am trying to teach them. _

_ you would not be my Scholar if you did not.  _ At that, Scholar grasped his hand, and Guide tried to get used to a smooth palm against his feeding organ.  _ i have been at war with your Lastlight myself, lately. he is a vicious general.  _

_ he was an engineer, until they took him.  _ Just for the novelty of it, Guide raised their hands to his mouth and kissed Scholar's knuckles, which seemed to go over well.

_ i was a navigator once. conventional wisdom aside, what we excel at is not always what we were made for. total war seems to be a talent of his. _

_ and of yours?  _ Stung, Guide released Scholar's hand with an unamused laugh. Lastlight's offensive actions had been basically nil for the past three months, which Guide assumed was largely due to Scholar's likely inadvertent distractions. So it was unlikely Scholar had any real idea how poorly Guide and his small, struggling faction were faring. With a Queen, maybe, they could have stood a chance, but as things stood it was only a matter of very little time before Guide found himself sneaking alone into Lastlight's bases. 

_ it is not, _ he admitted,  _ but I must try.  _ Scholar stared at him a moment and then rose unexpectedly, disappearing into the shower room. He emerged a moment longer with a small bottle, walking around the bed to slide in behind Guide's back. 

_ the state of your hair is completely unacceptable _ , Scholar said, and this time, when Guide laughed, he meant it. 

The room filled with the smell of some alien fruit as Scholar popped the bottle open and began to work whatever it contained into a section of Guide's tangles. As it had been more than a year since his captivity, Guide knew he should probably have done something about it by now, but it had been such a monster of a year, and what good would it do to spend time untangling his hair, when he could be spending it on anything remotely worthwhile? The feeling of Scholar's claws picking knots apart delicately was every bit as soothing as Guide remembered, however, loosening his posture and sending a pleasant static down his spine. Time seemed to slow, or at the very least seemed important, the galaxy narrowing to the feeling of Scholar's hands in Guide's hair. Outside, the light changed, but what it meant was anybody's guess. 

If there was a door chime, Guide didn't hear it. He only had a few seconds of warning after Scholar dropped his hands from their work before Scholar was calling out for someone to enter. 

Unexpectedly, it was Teyla pushing Sheppard's chair this time, her mouth a set line. She seemed more disturbed than angry, though her true feelings were locked as tightly as any Queen's should be, and Guide was leery of letting her know how strong her defenses were by testing them for her. 

"You know, we can come back if you're in the middle of something," Sheppard said, though Teyla pushed him inside the room until the door slid shut behind them. 

"You are not interrupting," Scholar answered for them, though privately Guide disagreed. Still, he could feel Scholar's curiosity, and had to admit he shared it. 

"We can be brief." Teyla sounded strained, leaning on the handles of Sheppard's chair. From what Guide remembered of human infants, he suspected she wasn't sleeping well. 

"It is not necessary to tell me the same thing twice," Scholar said coldly, some of the rage from earlier seeping back through his words.

"We are not." Teyla and Sheppard exchanged a glance. They seemed uncertain, which was a bit of a rarity. 

"Teyla looked for Michael, and… You were right, Schuyler. He's alive." Sheppard's attention flitted from the bed, to Scholar, to another wall, and it occurred to Guide that Sheppard was avoiding making eye contact with him. Behind him, meanwhile, Scholar was a solid line of tension, bristling with hope and terror. 

"I can go alone to get him. I will," Scholar hissed, and Guide grabbed blindly behind him until his hand landed on a knee. 

"Yeah, that doesn't sound like a great idea. The Genii aren't idiots. There's no way they haven't increased security around the gate after Ronon got in and out so easy." Scholar's hiss descended into a growl, and Guide was startled by the realization he had no idea what Scholar's face looked like at the moment. Judging from Sheppard and Teyla's reactions, Scholar looked about as angry as he felt.

"So you propose to  _ leave him there? _ " Cringing, Guide had to withdraw contact from Scholar's mind a little or risk a headache he didn't need on top of his fatigue. As for him, there were few people he would wish the hospitality of the Genii upon, and he wasn't sure if Lastlight was one of them. 

"No," Teyla said. "Not forever." 

"We have a ship that can beam a team down to Locus. Not into the base, but on top of it. The bad news is, it's currently about a week and a half out, on its way back from Earth, since  _ someone _ blew up the station we had halfway between." Ah. That. Guide swallowed down his own burr of irritation; it was bad enough one of his allies had taken advantage of the intelligence he had gathered before deciding to foolishly strike out on his own, but the incident had probably irreparably damaged any alliance he could have had with the Atlanteans as well. Not that there was any point in telling the Atlanteans the attack had nothing to do with him. Their minds seemed to have been made up quickly and firmly, where wraith were concerned.

"Why change your mind?" Scholar's hand spread between Guide's shoulder blades, picking his words deliberately, no doubt, to echo what he had heard from Guide. 

"I've been reliably informed by a number of sources that Michael can be convinced to clean up his mess, and maybe more besides, and anyway…" There Sheppard hesitated, meeting Guide's eyes at last. Only Scholar likely noticed the shiver that sent through Guide. "I don't believe in leaving prisoners in the hands of torturers." Scholar's claws dug into Guide's back as he flexed his hand by instinct. Guide barely felt it, caught up in Sheppard's gaze. He hardly knew what to make of the human's expression; it wasn't anything Guide thought he'd seen before, and not for the first time, Guide wished they really had been looking for a way to let them read human minds without taking their lives. 

"Will he last a week?" Scholar murmured, Guide suspected to himself. 

"You would likely know better than we," Teyla answered nevertheless. If she had touched the mind of a Genii captive, Guide supposed that answered the question of her haunted look. 

"The Genii were very adept at testing, and finding, the limits of wraith healing. Yes, I suspect they will keep him alive for many weeks," Guide said grimly, to Scholar's tangible distress. He would apologize later. For now, he watched Sheppard's expression intently, and found it just as unreadable as before. 

"And are you gonna last that long?" Sheppard asked him, voice as casual as ever. No clues what he was thinking there. 

"About that long," Guide guessed. For now, he was fatigued, but the hunger would hit him soon, and hard. "But not much longer."

"Guess we'll tell the  _ Daedalus  _ not to plan for a long stay when she gets here." Guide nodded. He would gladly wait a week for a chance to take more lives from his former captors, and to his surprise he found that Scholar fervently agreed. 

So it would seem, for the time being, they were staying on Atlantis.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, sorry about the delay, it absolutely will happen again. 
> 
> No actual episodes were harmed in the making of this one, so that's a lot less time on the wiki, maybe. 
> 
> Anyway, Todd has never done anything wrong in his life. 
> 
> You may find me at whollyunnecessary.tumblr.com if you feel like it. Please don't tell anybody I'm related to how to get back here. I don't post enough Stargate content.
> 
> EDIT: Oh man I made a huge mistake there. You know what, I haven't seen Common Ground in like a decade. I think maybe I fixed it now?


End file.
